Eulogy of an Immortal

Author: Brodit / Brendan O'Donnell

Original post: https://darkharlequin8.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/pod-and-planet-yc117-day-one-eulogy-of-an-immortal/

Entry for the YC117 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the A Day in the Life category.

I awoke in a cylinder made of metal and filled with liquid. I was drowning. I kicked and punched the inside of the tube as best I could, to be surprised when a doorway slid open. Light flooded in, fluid splashed out. I followed it, caught my foot on the lip of the opening and tumbled onto the gangway below. Eight feet below, disorientated, half blinded by the sudden light, I face planted the ground. The bridge of my nose catching on the grilled floor of the gangway. Below, the fluid in which I had been immersed gathered on a spillage tray which flowed beneath the gangway. It had a greenish tint until the blood from my nose began to mix with it. I knelt on all fours as my head pounded, my chest burned and liquid filled lungs refused to breathe. My belly was distended and most horrifying of all, was still attached to the cylinder by a pink fleshy umbilical cord. Violent muscle contractions began in waves, as more liquid was forcibly expelled through every orifice on my body. For five minutes I lay there, foetal position as the spasms decreased in severity and frequency. I watch transfixed as the umbilical cord suddenly slackened and fell free of the tube, moreover it shortened as I watched: a fuse made of flesh. By the time it stopped I had a belly button and realised that I was dry, naked perhaps but whole (even my nose had stopped bleeding) and most importantly, alive.

In reality, my troubles were only just beginning. For one thing I had no idea where I was. Slightly more disturbing: a lifetime of vague memories swam through my mind. Faces, places, names jumbled and jarred against each other. I seemed to remember what I was, if not whom; not that it gave me any kind of clue as to where I was. I could hear someone nearby, raging, crying for help. I turned around but saw no-one. The room was large, lined with cylinders just like the one from which I had emerged. Each row of cylinders had a gangway connecting them, and each gangway joined a larger walkway on the far side of the room. What was this place? A prison? A torture chamber? Was someone trapped inside another of these cylinders? I decided to see if I could locate them simply by following their voice. I was close, I could hear them clearly, but as I moved the volume of their voice didn’t change, “Strange.”, I thought.

Tentatively I called out. “Hello, where are you? I’ll come and help.”

“Get out of my body!”

The reply shocked me, the tirade of abuse which followed it angered me. Great, now I’m hearing voices.

As a rule I don’t do fear. In my opinion fear is what happens to the other guy when you take whatever it is that they have, that you want; wealth, power, their life. You know, the usual. Today I was racking up firsts by the second. Time to leave. I followed the gangway to the end of the room and turned to see a massive door at the end of the adjoining walkway. The walls and the door were all clad in burnished metal, whoever owned this place wasn’t short of cash. I made a mental note to relieve them of some of it, to the derision of the voice in my head. I chose to ignore it. A hidden door slid open next to the exit and two guards emerged. A prison then, I cheered up considerably, this at least was familiar territory.

I was unimpressed. They were clad in white, with an eagle motif on their arms. Otherwise they were unarmed and unarmoured, this would be quick and quiet, two of my favourite things. Perhaps it was the way I strode towards them, they faltered. The one at the front held up his hands in a placating manner and babbled at me in a language I didn’t understand. I sensed excitement in the voice in my head, it had heard him, understood him. I could feel it trying to wrest control of my body away from me. I drowned it in hate. The guard tried again.

“Rael, there has been a malfunction in the reanimation chamber. You are disorientated, calm down trust us, we can help.” it was incomprehensible to me, but if we’re talking then maybe …

“If you want to help, open that door and get the hell out of my way.” Unfortunately, they no more understood me than I them, the blank looks they exchanged told me that much. The first guard edged closer to me. I waited. I noticed the second guard slip a small hollow rod out of his pocket and a vial of liquid, which he inserted into the back of the rod. A weapon after all and poisoned. That goes a long way to explain what happened next. I don’t object to poison on a professional level, it is simply to useful to leave out of ones arsenal. Also toxicity can be a relative thing so one must experiment to discover the right dose for the right effect. Finally they can be quite fun recreationally speaking. I have spent a lifetime building up my immunity to various substances, actually most substances; so on a normal day I’d have laughed at that poor bugger. Today was not normal, today I was unnerved, today that poor bugger was going to die.

As soon as the first guard came within arms’ reach, he was grabbed, spun and thrown heavily against the wall. I hadn’t intended to kill him but the sound of his skull against the wall resounded across the room. Oops. I must give the second guard his due, he charged me, hand high in the air poised to strike. I caught that arm with my left hand and drove my free fist into his face. His skull collapsed around my hand, the bridge of his nose biting deep in between my knuckles as his corpse twitched to the floor. Only the door remained. There was some baffling writing on it and no apparent lock. However there was a panel next to the door, suggesting a locking mechanism. It was made of a material I had never seen before. Black, smooth to the touch and warm, it had coloured lights imbedded within it somehow and on its reflective surface there was my face. An impossible face. The face of a man at the beginning of his journey, not the end. I looked so young I barely recognised that face. Then suddenly, I saw the face of the first guard behind me and felt a trickle of cold down my neck. I slid down the door as consciousness slipped away.

When I awoke I found myself strapped to a table bound by metal restraints which held my arms, legs and torso. There was something attached to my neck holding my head in place so that all I could see was the ceiling, clad in the same metallic material that covered the walls. I could make out to voices nearby, talking. Again the language was unfamiliar but at least it was external the voice in my head had gone. No, it hadn’t, it was still there, listening. I tried to make out the discussion hoping to glean a familiar word or phrase anything to discover where I was and perhaps even why.

“Explain. What exactly am I looking at?” it was a man’s voice, deep and resonant with authority.

“Zis is ze medical record for Rael Hammerhead, ze patient.” Replied another man, it was higher pitched than the first and somewhat obsequious the voice was familiar, if not the tone.

“No it’s not. This record shows a man with blonde hair, the patient has black hair. Admittedly the length and style is similar and the face is uncanny. Could they be related, brothers perhaps?”

“Ze eyes have changed too, but zey are cosmetic changes ze DNA profile confirms ze capsuleers identity. Zis is Rael Hammerhead.”

I could feel the other presence in my mind become agitated, hopeful even. I tried to hit my head of the table but it was still held firmly in place.

“Zis might explain some of ze uzzer anomalies we have discovered.” There was trepidation in that voice, at what I couldn’t even hazard a guess.

“What other anomalies?” Even I got the tension there.

“His hippocampus is unusually enlarged, moreover it appears to be hyperactive as if it were being bombarded by new memories. Zis is not unusual in itself, capsuleers need to retain and utilise new information for each craft they fly. We genetically enhanced zem to learn at greatly improved rate.”

“I am responsible for the authorisation of pilots’ licences to new capsuleers, I know they are enhanced.” His deep voice and superior attitude was really beginning to piss me off, I made a mental note to remonstrate with that one at great length. Just as soon as I could get free. “What is it specifically about this that concerns you?”

“Ze hippocampus grows steadily over time, it also forces ze neural tissue to become denser but it does so in a regular and constant fashion. According to our records Rael is a graduate, not yet a pilot.”

“Yes.”

“But he has ze hippocampus of a veteran capsuleer.” I may not know the language, but I know a lie when I hear one. That was a lie, I didn’t know what and I didn’t know why, but if he had lied then he had an agenda, an agenda which clearly conflicted with the other guy. A conflict that I might exploit, I settled down again this time with a small seed of hope. I smiled in spite of myself.

“Excuse me? Where do these memories come from? Is there no evidence of alteration in his neural signature? You have verified the neural signature, haven’t you?”

“Zere was a slight aberration in his neural sig, but I had presumed it to be related to ze uzzer changes. I wasn’t …”

“Show me.” The lighting flickered in the room momentarily.

“Zis is Rael’s neural sig, before inception,” I sensed reluctance in that delay, “and zis is ze signature now. As you can see, ze current signature contains ze same imprint as before as well as some extra information which I have interpreted as being …”

“Are you kidding me?” Authoritarian and angry, I was beginning to think he was a lawman of some sort. I was right to hate him. “How often have you seen a neural signature change?”

“Never, but…”

“Never, exactly. It’s as constant as a DNA strand, which is why we call it a signature. It is unique to the individual and now you’re telling me this one is changing. Tell me is there any incidents that cause a neural signature to change.”

“You’re referring to infomorph psychosis. We screen out candidates who have a predisposition towards psychosis early in ze capsuleer training program. To have got zis far, to graduate, it is inconceivable zat it would not have been picked up before. Furthermore, psychosis changes ze entire signature leaving no trace of ze original. He clearly does not show such drastic changes.”

“So what do you believe to be the route cause?”

“A faulty clone. Eizer in zis clone or in ze previous clone and propagated by ze transference of consciousness. However, ze original imprint is fading, if we do act soon we could be looking at some sort of progressive psychosis which will be much harder to deal wiz.”

Silence loomed like a spectre, I took solace from the agitation of that other presence in my head. I didn’t have a plan yet, I chose not to break the silence, I didn’t want them to get wind of the fact that I was eavesdropping. It was the lawman who broke the silence.

“When was the previous inception?”

“Six weeks ago. Controlled pod explosion; training program.”

“Good. Reset the profile to then, better to lose a little experience than lose a pilot. Rig the next vat so that it will hold him and we can monitor the transference process directly. I don’t want him running amok on the station again.”

“Done and ze patient is beginning to come round. Shall we question him?”

“No. Euthanise the defective clone.”

There was a tone of finality in that voice I couldn’t help but notice. I tried to get their attention but was held fast, unfortunately a hundred thousand volts will arch a body in ways that muscles can only dream of.

I awoke in another flickering tube.

There is a commonly held belief that your entire life flashes before your eyes when you die. This is broadly true except in my case, I had to relive two lifetimes: one long, hazy and drenched in blood, the other short, clear and completely new to me. His life in my mind. By the time my consciousness had been downloaded into the new body I knew everything he knew, whilst my life seemed vague and half forgotten. I waited as the reanimation process concluded and the nanite-enfused amniotic fluid purged itself from my body. Although my arms and legs were free, I still seemed to be connected to the cylinder by the neck and shoulders. I tested the constraints, there seemed to be some give, with brute force I might be able to break free. Good to know.

I heard muffled voices approaching when the hatchway slid open. I stood impassive and watched the two figures on the gangway below. One was tall, bald, clad in black, on his breast there was a five pointed star bounded by a circle with five more points extending beyond the outer edge. The other was shorter, older with a shock of curly white hair most bizarrely of all exactly as I had pictured him. He was dressed in the same garb as the guards earlier with the eagle emblem of the Gallente on his breast pocket. As he climbed the ladder the tall one spoke, “Didn’t you say that this would reverse the changes?” His voice was the voice from the room, he was a lawman, Concord to be precise. Now I had a face to put with that voice, at least until I tore it from his head. The man in white ignored him, I didn’t; I scowled.

“Rael. How do you feel? Zere was an accident during ze last reanimation process we had to euzanise ze defective clone.” He paused, unsure. “Rael, can you hear me?”

“Stop calling me, Rael.” It was barely a whisper, but the shock that registered across his face was a mirror to my own. Not only did I understand them, they understood me.

“What should we call you?” A good question, there was a name hovering on the tip of my tongue but I was damned if I could remember it. I chose to ignore the question.

“Do you know where you are?”

“A space station, in the clone chamber.” I replied. The words tumbled out of my mouth and dragged implications in their wake. I was staggered. I tried to focus on what was real, my name and the identity that hung off of it. Meanwhile I shifted my stance so that my toes were the only part of me on the ground, my heels were braced against the back of the cylinder. All I needed now was leverage and opportunity.

“Get down from there, I’ll try.” The scientist dismounted and the man from Concord climbed the ladder to confront me directly.

“I am Commissar Vadiran of the Bureau of Capsuleer Registration. By the powers vested in me by the Concord Assembly you are compelled to assist in this investigation. Rael Hammerhead do you understand me?” He turned to the scientist. “Still think this is a faulty clone?”

“At least he is talking now, and his neural signature is stabilising. Ze clone activation may have worked.”

Vadiran turned to me again. “Graduate Hammerhead, you WILL comply with this questioning. We need to ascertain your viability. Rael …”

It may have been the smell of bacon, maybe it was the constant use of a dead man’s name, or perhaps it was his belief that he could order me around that enraged me. I spat at him, “Stop calling me Rael!” My hands flew at his throat my fingers locked behind his neck. I began to squeeze. In surprise he let go of the ladder but my grip was too strong and I held him in place. Suddenly it was there. I knew, I remembered and it gave me such strength. I pushed up and forward with my feet and through clenched teeth I growled. “My name is Brodit.” We fell together, I sensed the tether snap behind me. The intense pain was fleeting since I was quite dead before we hit the ground.

And I awoke in another clone vat.

Our lifetimes merged. All I could to was experience them. It felt like falling through memories; his and mine. His was a strange life, he was a pseudo immortal, his consciousness transmitted in death to a freshly prepared body contained in a clone vat. For all that, he was young and inexperienced, my sense of self had supplanted him; my experiences overwhelming his fragile mind. I had become greater than I had been, a product of two worlds, two lives, when I returned home I would be unstoppable. The feeling of falling was different, it was like being stretched by beams of light whilst spinning in space until I landed.

This time I was prepared. When the amniotic fluid drained away, I used the synaptic link to hack the clone chamber to force an emergency release. When the door slid open, I stepped onto the ladder. Commissar Vadiran was still on the ground trying to extricate himself from my corpse. I noted dispassionately that the top half of my spinal cord was missing, blood spraying from the gaping wound, some of it gathering on the spillage tray. I opened a locker on the side of the chamber and put on the white coat stored there. It wouldn’t do to have a pilot, the greatest achievement of the Empyrean Age, stalk the corridors naked.

The scientist reacted first. He came towards me, carefully. “Rael…” he stopped, “Brodit.”

“Yes.” I replied, mildly. Fight had got me killed, time to try diplomacy, at least until flight was possible.

“Do you know where you are?” he continued. Fortunately I had a premade identity I could slip into, so I used it. The scientist gave me an opportunity to escape, if I played ball with him, he might help convince the Commissar I was no threat.

“This is the clone chamber for the Centre for Advanced Studies, a star port in orbit above Cistuvert V. I am a graduate of their capsuleer program under the direction of Professor Villore.” I nodded at the White haired man, who smiled, “I’m sorry if I have caused you any inconvenience Professor. I was born on the Intaki home world in YC 87 and accepted onto the program YC 92. I am a specialist in electronic engineering and modular AI.” I turned to the Commissar. “Rael Hammerhead is dead to me. Henceforth I shall be known as Brodit, amend my pilot’s licence to reflect that. Now either arrest me or release me, I’m tired and I’ve died three times already today. Let me sleep and I will gladly answer any questions you have tomorrow.”

“Why would we arrest you?” asked the Professor Villore. Vadiran snorted but said nothing.

“The unfortunate incident with the med tech.”

“Was an accident.” He added.

“Yes, but it doesn’t alter the fact that he is dead.”

“No, however zere seemed to be an issue with ze transference. In all likelihood zat was responsible for your aberrant behaviour, you cannot be held responsible. Ze fact you are clearly remorseful of ze event proves zat if nothing else you are not suffering from psychosis, so if zere is an inquiry it will be a simple formality. Don’t you agree Commissar?”

The question hung in the air.

I enjoyed watching Vadiran squirm. Capsuleers are the upper echelon of New Eden society, they represent a small but elite class of people who can unleash the full power of star ship warfare. The time and cost of their training regimen means that all graduates must be of the highest calibre. Any suggestion that they are less than the epitome of humanity would undermine public confidence in the capsuleers and by extension the empires that bred them. Finally, the Commissar relented, “Very well, let me escort you to your quarters. We can discuss the changes in your pilot’s licence as we go.”